The development objective of the Industry and Entrepreneurship Project for Kenya is to increase innovation and productivity in select private sector firms.
... Exibir mais + It has three components. First component, strengthening the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem aims to improve the survival and growth rates of technology-enabled startups in Kenya through a stronger innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and talent base; Second component, SME linkages and upgrading aims to strengthen the productivity and internal capabilities for innovation of Kenyan SMEs, so that they can better compete for local and international market opportunities. It will support SMEs in improving their managerial and technical skills and their use and access to technology, and contribute towards the creation of local content. This component will finance diagnostics and performance-based contracts to select SMEs; Third component, outreach, M&E, and project implementation support is to provide resources for: (a) communications to facilitate diffusion and replication of promising innovations, (b) monitoring and evaluation (M&E) analyses to ensure the implementation and sustainability of the Project’s activities, and (c) project implementation support, through the Project Implementation Unit (PIU). This component will finance the design and implementation of an overall Project communications strategy, and dissemination tools to inform stakeholders on the Project’s progress and facilitate replicability of early success stories.
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Qualquer tipo de documento: Documento de avaliação do projeto:Relatório Nº.: PAD2369Data do documento: MAY 23, 2018

This paper examines empirically the links between adoption of information and communications technology (ICT), defined as usage by firms, innovation, and productivity using firm-level data for a sample of six Sub-Saharan African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
... Exibir mais + Although adoption of information and communications technology in these countries is still lagging behind OECD countries, there is significant heterogeneity on adoption rates across the countries. Kenya has the largest adoption rate of computer, software, and Internet usage. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania experience lower adoption rates. The degree of internationalization of the firm, use of technology, and extent of competition are important factors explaining firm-level use of ICT. The results of the estimates suggest that ICT use is an important and robust enabler of product, process, and organization innovation across all six countries. However, the final impact on productivity depends on the degree of novelty of the innovation introduced by the firm.
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Ratings for the Information Technology (IT) Industry Development Project for Guatemala were as follows: outcomes were high, the risk to development outcome was low, the Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and the Borrower performance was also moderately satisfactory.
... Exibir mais + Some lessons learned included: the rapid pace in which IT Industry evolves translates into constant changes of the set of skills firms demand. On the other hand, universities ability to agilely adapt curricula to IT industry needs is limited. In order to bridge this skill gap, entities such Mexico FIRST, in the form of broker entities that can easily adapt and update a large portfolio capacity building offerings, emerge as a solution. For maximizing impact and relevance of IT capacity building programs a main lessons emerged from the Project: a constantly updated curriculum to cater to latest industry needs is required. Another lesson connected to skills relates to Mexico FIRST’s dual scheme of incentives, with a focus on certifications given its higher impact for better access to markets. First, the scheme only funded beneficiary institutions when a minimum ratio of 80 percent of students certified over trained was achieved. This ensured vested interest in completion of certifications. Secondly, incentives focused on providing bonuses to capacity building institutions, rather than for individual students. Thus, monetary risk of failure was borne by capacity building facilitators, instead of beneficiaries. Capacity building institutions confirmed adequacy of the target ratio and comfortability with bearing this risk. Therefore, grants aiming skills development can be more effective when incentives for beneficiaries: (i) include a clear commitment of certifications over capacity building, and (ii) remove the potential threat of economic hardship a certain certification level is not achieved.
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Little is known about innovation in developing countries, partly because of the lack of comparable and reliable data. Collecting data on firm-level innovation is challenging because of the subjective definition of what determines an innovation, a problem that is exacerbated in developing countries where innovation is likely to be more incremental and less radical.
... Exibir mais + This paper contributes to the literature by presenting the results of an experiment aiming to identify the survey instrument that better captures firm-level innovation in developing countries. The paper shows that a small set of questions included in a multi-topic, firm-level survey does not provide an accurate picture of firm-level innovation and tends to overestimate innovation rates. Issues related to framing explain some of the unreliability of innovation responses, while cognitive problems do not appear to play a significant role.
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The objective of the Science and Technology Project for Guyana is to strengthen the four science and technology faculties at UG through infrastructure, research and curricular improvements while developing the basis for improved facilities management and future growth.
... Exibir mais + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: contractor shall collect and store waste oils in the event it becomes necessary to change these in the UG campus. Containers labeled with lids will be place in ventilated area with impermeable floors; where possible, the contractor in consultation with the University Administration and other stakeholders shall explore possibilities of optimizing the use of solar power, as well as the use of energy efficient bulbs; take all reasonable steps to protect the environment on and off the Site and to limit damage to people and property resulting from pollution, noise and other results from the contractor’s operations; ensure that emissions, surface discharges and effluent from the contractor’s activities shall not exceed the values indicated by the ES and shall not exceed the values prescribed by applicable laws of Guyana or those indicated in the environmental and social manual of this project; and ensure the adequate disposal of construction and excavation wastes; and restore the site to original conditions or to a state after the completion of the works as set out in the specifications.
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Kenyas economy has undergone a significant process of structural transformation over the last decade. Since 2002, the economy has shown an accelerating trend with GDP growth increasing steadily from below 1 percent in 2002 to 7 percent in 2007.
... Exibir mais + After a slowdown in GDP growth to 1.5 percent and 2.7 percent in 2008 and 2009 respectively, economic growth started to rebound in 2010. Amidst this positive growth context, in October 2013, the Kenyan Government launched the Second Medium-Term Plan (MTP-2) of the Vision 2030. The aim of Kenyas Vision 2030 is to create a globally competitive and prosperous country with a high quality of life by 2030 and to shift the countrys status to upper-middle income level.
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An Enterprise Survey is a firm-level survey of a representative sample of an economys private sector. The surveys cover a broad range of business environment topics including access to finance, competition, corruption, crime, gender, infrastructure, innovation, labor, performance measures, and trade.
... Exibir mais + The World Bank has collected this data from face-to-face interviews with top managers and business owners in over 130,000 companies in more than 135 economies.
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The report reviews the latest data about companies using open data, and highlights four companies which did not exist ten years ago, which are driven by open data, and which are each now valued at around $1 billion or more.
... Exibir mais + It discusses the five archetypical types of businesses using Open Data, and cites concrete examples of each, and discusses the types of data which are proving most likely to lead to widespread business adoption and innovation. One of the examples of successful open data companies is Zillow with a market capitalization of over $3 billion, provides a home and real estate on-line marketplace. Climate Corp, acquired for $930 million by Monsanto in October 2013, uses 60 years of detailed crop yield data, weather observations from one million locations in the United States and 14 terabytes of soil quality data - all free from the US Government, to provide applications that help farmers improve their profits by making better informed operating and financing decisions. The paper suggests that since Open Data is relatively new in Russia it is unsurprising that there is less evidence of actual economic returns so far. Nevertheless rapid progress has been made, with the successful publication of over 500 datasets as promised by July 2013. Subsequently the first version of the Russian Open Data portal data.gov.ru has been launched, and already contains close to 1300 datasets. In addition to the release of data from Ministries of the Russian Federation there have been creditable Open Data initiatives in several regions, with 8 regional open data portals, and in major cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg. There is no fundamental reason why Russia should not be able to exploit the economic advantages of open data for itself, and indeed why Russia should not be a global leader in the exploitation of Open Data elsewhere in the region and globally. In addition to the available data and well-advanced digitization of the government, Russia has active venture capital sector with both state and private sources of capital, high-speed broadband and mobile internet infrastructure and necessary technical skills. The report makes some recommendations for policies and actions which the Government of the Russian Federation could take to maximize the economic growth possible from their data, and suggests that the Government should see itself not only as a Supplier of open data but also as a leader, catalyst and user of it.
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